Face The Dragons

Thanks to my friend and past client David Kirkaldy of Massive Group in Cayman. I wrote this post nearly a decade ago and was reminded of the idea of “Go where there be Dragons” by a tweet this week from Carl Richards.

Though my old blogs from that time got taken down before I remembered to archive the articles (lost!), this one post was saved by David reposting it in 2012, so I’ll curate it for posterity on this site today.

YOUR thing is unique. It’s new and novel. Instead of pitching it as “like X but for Y” you find yourself saying “there’s nothing like it!”

As soon as you do that, as soon as you tap into something that I uniquely yours…you start dancing with dragons. It’s awesome! And scary. People look at you a bit confused because they have no frame of reference for what your doing.

And of course one hint that your doing your thing is the reality that it might not work! But of course the dragons are calling to you…so even though it’s scary, even though it might not work…YOU MUST DO IT ANYWAY!

Enjoy the post.. and Go where there be Dragons! Oh, and at the very end, I believe it was the first time I used the line “Command and Control is dead”, which you may be familiar with as it is prominent on my home page! Oh, and I quoted Chip Conley, who I then met in person in April 2018, introduced through writing on this daily blog. I don’t believe in coincidence, I believe in creating serendipities! At this moment am feeling a lot of that!

Face The Dragons

We live in a world far different from just a few years ago, a world where what it takes to be a successful leader has totally and completely changed. We live in a world where a leader must face the dragons of the unknown.

Our brave new world is one where leaders can no longer hope to know all the answers, so the old measures and methods of leadership are no longer fit for purpose. Instead, they must learn and apply new skills to lead their organisations to be flexible, able to measure and accept risk, and be prepared and ready to face as yet unknown challenges.

On ancient maps, dragons were drawn to symbolize the unknown, and to travel beyond the familiar world was to “go where there be dragons.” This analogy of the unknown is true for leaders from the smallest company to the largest organisations and highest offices.

Our world is no longer simply complicated, it is complex. What is the difference? Brenda Zimmerman of Schulich School of Business explains: “Performing hip replacement surgery is complicated. It takes well-trained personnel, precision and carefully calibrated equipment. Running a health care system, on the other hand, is complex. It’s filled with thousands of parts and players, all of whom must act within a fluid, unpredictable environment. To run a system that is complex, it’s not enough to get the right people and the ideal equipment. It takes a set of simple principles that guide and shape the system.”

What, then, is the role of a leader where the world is too complex to manage by the book and where diversity, ambiguity, speed and expectations are ever-changing? It is, as Ms. Zimmerman put it, to “guide and shape”, to keep the organisation true to its purpose and values.

As Chip Conley teaches with “Peak”, the most powerful organisations are those where people don’t work for the carrot (the money) or the stick (just keeping a job), but because they are empowered to reach for a deeper purpose, both their own and their organizations. These motivated people are loyal, hard-working, creative, and will help their organisation thrive in a complex world. What, then, is the key to leading an empowered organisation in a complex world?

Trust

Great leaders trust their people, their values, their organisation. Trust is a two-way street though, and leaders cannot expect to be followed unless they also continually build trust through their actions and how they communicate.

Seth Godin observes in one of his most powerful posts: “the organisations that matter are busy being run by people who figure out what to do next”. “Command and Control” is dead. Trust and Empowerment are what is “next” if you are to thrive in a complex world.

Some leaders will be able to adapt, and some of the leaders of today are showing greatness by recognising they won’t be the leaders of tomorrow and are finding their successors. For those remaining leaders who can evolve, and for those new leaders who will emerge, this post is music to their ears. They are ready to Reinvent or Die, mess with normal, embrace the risk of the new, and Go Where There Be Dragons!

How are you adapting to the new normal? What is or was your organisational dragon?